South Korea Before Price Hikes

Why a sudden increase of blows at South Korea’s many convenience stores in the run up to the government’s sweeping measure to hike tobacco prices starting January 1st of next year?

Hint: Convenience stores are the most favorite destination for smokers to buy cigarettes in South Korea.

With Seoul nearly doubling the price of cigarettes in its aim to lower the nation-wide smoking rate while raising tax revenue, a growing number of smokers are rushing to nearby convenience stores – apparently hoarding cheap tobacco products before the price increases go into affect.

As the demand for tobacco at lower prices surged, many display stands stood empty, resulting in government’s latest guideline to limit the number of cigarette packs per customer.

This lead to bickering between store clerks and customers who wanted to stock up on their cigarettes in advance, and in some cases, they ended up exchanging blows.

On December 22 in Miah-dong in northern Seoul, a customer surnamed Kim wanted to buy cigarettes at a local store only to find there were none available. When the store staff’s apologized for the inconvenience, saying, “All sold out,” he was driven to fury and hit the store manager in the face two times.

A similar incident also occurred in northern Seoul on December 15, when a customer surnamed Jeong resorted to violence upon hearing about cigarette purchasing limits at a local convenience store.

While there is much upheaval in the tobacco industry in the run up to the nation-wide price hikes, it seems that the electronic-cigarette or e-cigar manufacturers might enjoy benefits due to the policy shift.

South Korea approves cigarette price hike

South Korea's parliament has approved an 80% hike in the price of cigarettes, a move aimed at curbing consumption.

A rise from 2,500 won ($2.25; £1.43) per pack to 4,500 won from 1 January was part of the 2015 budget adopted late on Tuesday.

South Korea has among the highest male smoking rates among OECD countries at 43.7%, according to the Health Ministry.

The government hopes the hike will bring that down to 29% by 2020.

South Korea has one of the lowest prices of cigarettes in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group of countries and it has remained unchanged since 2004.

The government has also won approval to link cigarette prices to consumer price rises so that cigarette prices move with inflation growth.

Previous measures to try and curb consumption have included banning lighting up in public places, pictures of the harm caused by smoking on packaging and a ban on tobacco ads in retail stores.